Ukraine’s leader welcomed a series of new economic sanctions against Russia imposed by the Trump administration and the European Union on Thursday, calling the increased pressure on Moscow “very important.”
CBS News correspondent Ramy Inocencio says new US sanctionsannounced by the Treasury on Wednesday, they essentially prevent Americans from trading with anyone at Russian oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil, or any company more than 50% owned by them.
The sanctions are a victory for Zelenskyy. But despite President Trump’s open frustration with Russia’s strongman leader, who has refused to negotiate a truce, American pressure on Moscow has so far only increased in economic terms. not with the supply of additional long-range weaponsor even with open permission to launch attacks deeper inside Russia.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent encouraged allies to “come together” when he announced new US sanctions on Wednesday, and the European Union quickly followed suit.
The EU imposed new economic sanctions on Russia on Thursday as part of an expanded effort to cut off the revenue it finances. Moscow’s three-year invasion of Ukraine and force President Vladimir Putin will negotiate the end of the war.
“We expected this. God bless him, it will work. And this is very important,” the Ukrainian leader said in Brussels, where EU countries attending a summit announced the bloc’s latest round of sanctions.
MAGALI COHEN/Hans Lucas/AFP/Getty
In an earlier social media post when he arrived in Brussels, Zelenskyy thanked Trump for a “resolute and well-guided decision,” and called the US sanctions a “clear signal that prolonging the war and spreading terror comes at a cost.”
“It is a strong and much-needed message that aggression will not go unanswered,” he said, later adding a call for other nations to join sanctions on Russia.
Russia is disdainful, but the former president calls the sanctions an “act of war”
Russia, however, dismissed the sanctions announced by Ukraine’s Western partners as counterproductive, with state news agency RIA Novosti declaring that they would be “painful, as always, but not deadly. Also as always.”
“Pressure or no pressure, it won’t make things any sweeter for Zelenskyy. And what’s more, it won’t bring peace closer,” said Komsomolskaya Pravda, a popular pro-Kremlin tabloid.
Former president and current chairman of the Russian State Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, went further, as the outspoken figure often does, by declaring US sanctions “an act of war.”
“The United States is our enemy, and its loquacious ‘peacemaker’ has embarked fully on the path of war with Russia,” Medvedev wrote in a message posted on social media. “The decisions made are an act of war against Russia. And now Trump has fully aligned himself with crazy Europe.”
The measures are a long-sought victory for Zelenskyy, who has campaigned for the international community to punish Russia more comprehensively for attacking his country.
Despite US-led peace efforts in recent months, the war shows no signs of ending after more than three years of fighting, and European leaders are increasingly concerned about the threat from russia.
Ukrainian forces have held off the largest Russian army in a slow, ruinous war of attrition along a roughly 600-mile front line that snakes across eastern and southern Ukraine.
Almost daily long-range Russian attacks have targeted Ukraine’s power grid ahead of the harsh winter, while Ukrainian forces have targeted Russian oil refineries and manufacturing plants.
Trump frustrated with Putin, but so far offers sanctions, not missiles
Energy revenues are the linchpin of the Russian economy, allowing Putin to pour money into the military without worsening inflation and avoiding a currency collapse.
The EU measures target Russian oil and gas, Russia’s shadow fleet of hundreds of aging tankers that are evading sanctions, and Russia’s financial sector. A new system will also be introduced to limit the movement of Russian diplomats within the 27-nation EU.
Zelenskyy urged more nations to punish Russia. “This is a good signal for other countries in the world to join the sanctions,” he told reporters in Brussels.
International crude oil prices rose more than $2 per barrel on Thursday on news of the additional sanctions.
Senior officials in Europe and the United States have debated for months how best to increase pressure on the Kremlin.
When the sanctions were announced in Washington on Wednesday, Trump denied a Wall Street Journal report that had eased US restrictions on Ukraine’s use of long-range weapons to target deeper inside Russia, calling it “fake news.”
“The United States has nothing to do with those missiles, wherever they come from, or what Ukraine does with them!” Mister. Trump said in a post on his own Truth Social platform.
So far, Trump has also disappointed Zelenskyy in his long-running attempt to secure American-made long-range Tomahawk missiles for use in his country’s defense.
Zelenskyy also reiterated on Thursday that Ukraine would not agree to give up any Russian-occupied territory as part of a ceasefire agreement. Trump said this week that the fighting should stop with the battle lines frozen where they are, with Russia’s invading forces controlling about 78% of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, he said.
Zelenskyy has called it a reasonable starting point for negotiations, but on Thursday he was quoted by Euronews after his arrival in Belgium as saying that a ceasefire agreement could not include “any territorial concessions” to Russia.
The new EU measures took almost a month to decide. The 27-nation bloc has already imposed 18 sanctions packages against Russia over the war, but reaching a final agreement on who and what to target may take weeks. Moscow has also proven adept at circumventing sanctions.
The US sanctions came after Trump said his The plan for a quick meeting with Putin was on hold. because I didn’t want it to be a “waste of time.” It was the latest twist in Trump’s hot and cold efforts to end the war as Putin refuses to budge on his demands.
President Trump again expressed his frustration with Putin in the Oval Office on Wednesday, telling reporters that “every time I talk to Vladimir, I have good conversations and then they go nowhere. They just don’t go anywhere.”
In what appeared to be a public reminder of Russia’s atomic arsenals, Putin on Wednesday led exercises of the country’s strategic nuclear forces.
With no peace in sight, Ukraine and Russia continue to fight
The two sides continued to beat each other throughout the night.
In a village in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, Russia carried out the so-called double-tap drone strike, hitting the same location a second time when rescuers arrived at the site of the first strike, regional chief Oleh Syniehubov said. One emergency worker was killed and five of his colleagues were injured, Syniehubov said.
Russian drones also attacked three districts of kyiv, wounding eight people, according to the city’s prosecutor’s office.
Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry reported intercepting and destroying 139 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions and the annexed Crimean peninsula overnight.
He did not comment on unconfirmed reports that Ukrainian drones attacked another oil refinery and an unspecified energy facility.
